20210316_Potatoes

This is my experimental straw bed for growing potatoes. I placed the potatoes in the ground and then covered with straw.

20210318_The big reveal

This was my grand unveiling of the top tarp after 5 months of being covered in cardboard. The tarp I used was light permiable with pallets placed on top. It is really interesting to see that the grass only came through on the bits where the gaps in the pallets were.

20210318_The new tarps!

These were a real find in Liddle. 2m x 5m for £5 each. They are water permiable but light excluding. I put them on the lower bed as this is the flattest part of the plot in preparation for my mini-pollytunnel.
I planned to move the pollytunnel later in the year and this would then give the bed some more time to surpress the couchgrass and bindweed that would be returning.

20210321_The plan

Bed nearest - flat for the new pollytunnel.
Left hand side - Straw bed
Right hand side - there is a big patio door which is way too heavy to move and I don't have a van, so that is staying there till I get my shed from a friend's dad after lockdown.
Moving up I laid down 3 beds with the second lot of cow manure that I had got from Pete the Manure in the March. This had sat at the top of the plot for 5 months. It was still decomposing with lots of compost worms which had taken up residence. Thank you twerms! I asked advice from fellow allotmenteers who said it would be good to grow in even though it was a bit lumpy. They were right!
The toppest area newly cardboarded and covered in the new tarp. This is where I planned for the asparagus bed to go later on.

20210324_Mini pollytunnel

I am so glad I got this little fella. £25 from somewhere on the internet. I put it on the black membrane as then I could run slug tape round the outside which seems to have worked very well as not had my local snails coming for a free lunch. I had some old shelves from a previous polytunnel. Sometimes being a bit of a hoarder can come in handy.

20210328 View up the plot.

Starting the first of the 3 mid beds. Forgot to mention my mate Scuba had given me some old weights which were great for holding down the fleece over the potatoe bed below. The fleece I'd actually bought the previous year in bag form to protect my fig tree from wasps.
So I repurposed it into a fleece which has worked well.

20210328_Rhubarb

This is my little patch of inherited rhubarb at the top of the plot.

20210329_My first compost bins

I was very excited by these. A friend had collected pallets for me the prevous year. One of the lads up my road dug out and flattened the surface at the top of the allotment, then Jules created my compost bins. I wanted the sides at the lower end to be able to be opened (to turn the compost later in the year). The one on the left I covered with some makeshift plastic from a pallet covering to give me a little shed covering to store bits and bobs.

20210331_Polytunnel

I ran out of the slug tape that I had after one square meter but here is the shiny home for some of my first plants that I had been growing at home.

20210401_Compost bin

From another angle.

20210401_Compost bin

At home I've done successful compost on a very small, and then small scale for years. The recipe I use at home is from my friend Kevin:
- layer one - food waste (fresh, non cooked vegetable and fruit waste not citrus and not onions)
- layer 2 - cover with spent soil from plant pots, or soil
- layer 3 cardboard.
This gives the magic 1/3 green to 1/3 brown that Huw Richards amonght others recommend.
At the lottie I don't want to use the soil as I still have lots of couch grass and bind weed. So my recipe here is food waste (as above), more cardboard and I had some quite tough twigs from some very serious garden pruning of bushes I got rid of this year. It is not an ideal mix but as some of the twigs are quite 'twiggy' then my thinking is that this will be a longer term compost - maybe 2 years? And whilst the ratios are not perfect - Huw Richard said it was better to compost than not and just to get on with it in the first year. So who am I to argue.

20210401_Top bed uncovered

So, this is first of April, the tarp had been covering the previous cardboard put down last year. Not too much couch grass so pretty pleased with the result. You can see the difference with the border grass at the front of the pic. Left up to its own devices this is what it would have been like.

20210412_3 mid beds

One of my lovely neighbours gave me some strawberry plants so popped them in the first of the 3 beds (top in picture). I had also bought some plug plants in the autum which I kinda left in the garden to die. So testing them out to see if they still want to grow.

20210412_Last of the 3 beds

Taken from the top looking down the plot. Filling in the last of the 3 mid beds. Scaff boards finding another useful use as part path holder and weighing down the tarp.

20210412_Second of the 3 beds

Sporting it's new cloche

20210412_The Cloche arrives

Now whilst non of my gurus seem to mention cloches I remember my dad having one. And as it was £4 in B&M I thought worth a punt. I am really glad I did as it gave my peas and salad a really protected start when I planted them as little plants.

20210413_Bottom of the plot looking up

20210413_Give peas a chance

So, following the way Charles Dowding and Huw Richard grow peas I'd started mine off in March in plug trays that a neighbour had given me. Happy with root growth.

20210413_erm straight lines?

I now know why Huw Richard's uses string tied to a stick and rolled around another stick so that he can lay down a plumb line. Obviously didn't remember to do that here.

20210413_Peas in mid bed

20210504_Starting bed 3 of the 3

So here right to left we have the 3 mid beds
RHS - onion sets, stawberries with shallots. This companion planting taken from Grow Veg on YouTube. Funnily enough shallots and strawberries are friends but onions and strawberries are not.
Mid bed peas and salad's that I'd sown indoors and pricked out in March
Left hand side - bottom broad beans grown indoors in loo rolls, romonesco cauliflower under the fleect (again grown from seed and potted on into modules) at the tope of there more onion sets.

20210507_Polly abundance

Plants grown at home started in a tall thin pollytunnel frame in my front bay window, pricked out and grown on in a small plastic house I have in the garden and then hardening off here in the pollytunnel. The white trays with tiny plantpost were a real find in Aldi at £5 each and hold I think 50 plants. I will definitely buy these again as they have a watering tray and are easier to unpot than modules. Not so good for taller plants but that is what loo roll middles are for.

20210509_Asparagus bed starts

My friend Ian is kindly buying me 10 asparagus plants for birthday. This is the only formal raised bed that I am creating. It will be lined with membrane to make it as weed free as possible, the ground underneath has been covered with cardboard for a few months now, but needed to do a bit of digging to get it flat. First permenant use of the scaff boards on the plot. Thanks to Jules for screwing them together. As there were nails sticking out he insisted on covering the corners with gaffa tape. Just so you don't think they are actually held together with gaffa tape.

20210510_Asparagus bed

Here we have the water permiable weed free tarp and the start of the cow manure. Once I had filled it with cow manure I went and watched a few videos about planting asparagus (as a refresher), what I hadn't paid attention to first time was asparagus has really deep roots so then needed to cut a whole load of slits in the weed surpressor to let the asparagus roots have somewhere to grow. Time will tell.

20210510_Asparagus manure level

And now with slits (read previous picture).

Next Steps the lottie emerges

2021 The Work Starts

2021 updates from the creation of the new beds, arrival of the mini polytunnel, building of the first compost bin, laying down and planting the new beds. Building and planting the asparagus bed, and the new brassica cage (and yes I know it is too big!).

What I don't have pictures (but I do have a video - coming later) of what the plot was like when I returned in March. The two beds that I had prepared with the cow manure had some couch grass coming back but with half an hour of weeding that was sorted.

With the brassica cage I had been given some netting and found some conduit cable being given away on a wall - so wanted to see if I could make a housing for my brassicas at no cost.

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